Eye-popping amateur video captures the moment a three-year-old girl came face to face with a male lion as he angrily pawed the glass inside his enclosure at Wellington Zoo.
Three-year-old Sofia Walker didn’t flinch as Malik, a male lion, swiped his large paws against the glass at Wellington Zoo in New Zealand.
Captured on camera by her parents on 4 January, Sofia appeared completely unfazed.
“I was brave,” Sofia said afterwards.
“Maybe it felt threatened that Sofia might try and take it, or that he would prefer to eat her,” said her father Julian.
The zoo’s Paul Horton said the lion is prone to mood swings.
Sometimes when we are working with him he can get a little bit stroppy. Paul Horton
“[It’s] probably the second time I’d seen him engaging with the visitors through the glass, but sometimes when we are working with him he can get a little bit stroppy,” Horton said.
The glass between Sofia and the lion is resin bonded, so very safe, although Sofia’s mother was very nervous.
“I was surprised that my wife still held the camera steady rather than, you know, obviously lunging to get Sofia, but I think we knew that she was quite safe,” said Walker.
Sofia turns four next month and wants to return to the zoo.